'Do Not Give Me Things Unbroken'

"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing"
-Pascal, 'Pensées'

In the Fall of 2002 I read an article about poet Ottone

Riccio. To honor him on the occasion of his eightieth

birthday, Riccio's students compiled a poetry anthology,

entitled, "Do Not Give Me Things Unbroken".

In that anthology, each of the poems by past and present

students, 54 in all, was inspired by a Riccio assignment

to write something based on the book's title phrase.

I decided to take the 'assignment' myself and the result

was the poem below:



Do not give me things unbroken,

bring to me what's scarred and scratched,

All that's bent, and soiled, and torn,

Bring to me the shoes unmatched,



I must have what's frayed and dented,

old and battered, crushed and worn,

Crippled, bleeding, unrepented,

helpless, hapless and forlorn,



All these things I gather to me,

Though they're broken so am I,

I don't know what they mean to me,

My heart loves them, God knows why.

-jjorge999